High Court Office

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A high judicial office was a medieval and early modern judicial and prosecution authority in the Holy Roman Empire (HRR), whose task was the exercise of the high judiciary .

definition

The high judiciary formed the top shelf in the Holy Roman Empire (i.e. state sovereignty or rule) and was also known as Fraisch , Cent (or “Zent”), “Territorialjurisdiktion”, “Iurisdictio criminalis alta”, “merum imperum”, “Maleficent - "or" blood jurisdiction ".

To exercise this jurisdiction had developed the high court offices in the Middle Ages to their areas of expertise, both the prosecution as well as the criminal jurisdiction belonged. As is customary in other areas of law in the HRR, the High Court Offices performed both executive and judicial tasks. The areas of activity of the High Court Offices were clearly defined in spatial and factual terms and, moreover, completely detached from the rest of the state organization.

In the clerical principalities of the HRR (such as the bishopric of Bamberg or the bishopric of Würzburg ), the high court offices were referred to as Centamt , while in the secular territories (e.g. the imperial city of Nuremberg or the margravates of Brandenburg-Ansbach and Brandenburg-Bayreuth ) the designation Fraischamt was used. With regard to their range of tasks, they did not differ, the different names only resulted from their origins:

  • The (older) center offices had their origins in old cooperative judicial associations (centenae) or were created through imperial privileges.
  • The (younger) Fraischämter, on the other hand, were mainly due to the numerous border conflicts that the territorial powers of the HRR fought among themselves. In order to pacify these conflicts, numerous treaties were concluded in the 16th century in which the imperial powers agreed on the exact definition of the boundaries of their high court districts (such as in the Silver Treaty ). As a result, these borders were turned to earth and petrified . The high jurisdiction exercised within these limits was restricted to the punishment of the four or five “high reprimands” (murder and manslaughter, serious and bloody bodily harm, theft, rape and nightly arson).

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Neustadt-Windsheim . In: Historical Atlas of Bavaria . S. 38 ( Digitale-sammlungen.de [accessed April 7, 2020]).
  2. ^ A b Walter Bauernfeind: City Lexicon Nuremberg . Ed .: Michael Diefenbacher, Rudolf Endres. 2nd, improved edition. W. Tümmels Verlag, Nuremberg 2000, ISBN 3-921590-69-8 , p. 298 . ( Online ).
  3. ↑ Höchstadt-Herzogenaurach . In: Historical Atlas of Bavaria . S. 25 ( Digitale-sammlungen.de [accessed April 7, 2020]).
  4. ↑ a b Forchheim . In: Historical Atlas of Bavaria . S. 25 ( Digitale-sammlungen.de [accessed April 7, 2020]).
  5. ^ City and district of Bamberg . In: Historical Atlas of Bavaria . S. 42 .
  6. ↑ Kronach - The Altland District . In: Historical Atlas of Bavaria . S. 45 .